


Love in the Mundane

by Wreck



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Steter Week 2020, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25543459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wreck/pseuds/Wreck
Summary: Claudia is already gone when Stiles learns that she may have had a gift. And now that that gift has saved the Hales, and who knows how many others, can Stiles learn to do the same?
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 57
Kudos: 462
Collections: Steter Week 2020





	1. Thread

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying something a little different for Steter Week 2020, and I'm attempting to connect all of the image prompts into one longer story; each image inspiring a chapter. And I'm challenging myself to write them day by day. So, we'll see how this experiment goes. 
> 
> Also, note that Peter doesn't appear in chapter 1, but I assure you that this will be Steter endgame. 
> 
> This has not been beta'd. All mistakes are my own.

Sewing was something Stiles’ mom did to keep her hands busy. When Stiles would play she would sit on the floor with him, her old green plastic sewing box at her side, fingers moving seemingly on their own. She would sing to Stiles, snippets of things in English, Polish, maybe nonsense, as her fingers nimbly moved along a seam. And she never sewed anything in particular; sometimes she would darn socks, or patch a jacket; sometimes she would make little creatures, eyes made of mismatched buttons. 

The “little monsties” were Stiles’ favorites; these lopsided things made of extra fabric, often in clashing shades and materials. He would always sneak them away from her and stow them away in his jackets and lunchbox, in his bed and bookbag, in his dad’s cruiser and every so often in the fridge. 

For most of Stiles’ childhood, he was never without a monstie, and his friends’ parents got used to the unusual objects occasionally showing up in their own homes. Even as he got older, there was always one smashed at the bottom of his backpack, something he would only take out if he was having a particularly bad day. 

But then Claudia Stilinski died, and he didn’t want them anymore. So Stiles started giving them away: 

One to his best friend, Scott, who was also losing a parent, though his dad at least promised he would be back someday.

One to his friend Cora, who once secretly told Stiles that she always felt alone in her house, even with her two older siblings, mom, dad, and uncle all living there, too. 

One to Isaac who he used to be closer to, but now seemed distant and quiet, and always seemed so sad. 

One to Erica who he had shared one with before, back when he still carried them with him everywhere, when she needed comforting after a seizure. 

One to Boyd who had just lost his little sister, and looked so close to being lost himself. 

He didn’t outright hand the monsties to them, instead he hid them somewhere for them to find. In Scott and Cora’s rooms; in Isaac’s and Erica’s and Boyd’s backpacks. And if any of them ever found them, they didn’t say anything, but it made Stiles feel better anyway. 

The rest Stiles shoved into a box in the back of his closet, not wanting to see them, but unwilling to do anything else with them. 

And so a few years passed without Stiles giving the monsties much thought. He had to navigate life without his mom, and life with a father who spent more and more time at work. And just as Stiles was beginning to feel like he had a handle on things, just as his relationship with his dad was beginning to turn a corner, the Hale House burnt down. 

Stiles learned about the fire over a hurried breakfast, his dad already in uniform, holding a piece of toast in his teeth as he poured coffee in a travel mug. 

“Back up,” Stiles demanded, forgetting about the maple syrup in his hand and letting more and more pool into his rapidly cooling eggo waffle. “That’s all you’re going to say before you leave? Oh my god, is Cora ok? What about Derek and Laura? Their parents?”

“Stiles, look, I don’t know anything yet,” John said, holding his hands up in a placating position--or at least as close as he could get with a piece of toast newly transferred from his mouth. “I promise you I will tell you everything I can later. I know you and Cora are close, but I’ve got to get out to the scene. I’ve already called Melissa and she’ll drop you off at school this morning, and possibly pick you up when she gets Scott.”

“Yeah, ok.” Stiles grumbled, and then looked down at his plate and groaned. 

John crossed back across the kitchen and kissed Stiles on the top of the head. “There’s no real saving that one is there?” he asked, gesturing to the waffle. 

Stiles shrugged, “I think there’s another box in the freezer.”

“Love you, Kiddo.”

“Love you, too, Dad,” Stiles said, distracted by the waffle and thoughts of Cora. It was only later, after he had finished his second waffle, and Melissa had honked from outside, that Stiles realized that his dad said “burnt down” and not “had a fire.” And Stiles really, really didn’t want to think about the ocean of difference between those two phrases. 

As it turned out, however, he didn’t have to wait all day for his dad to come home to find out. Just as they were pulling up outside of Beacon Hills Jr High, Melissa’s phone rang. 

“Stiles, it’s your dad,” Melissa said, looking at her screen before, accepting the call. “Hi, John.”

There was a long pause on Melissa’s end and Scott and Stiles hovered, looking at each other and back at Melissa everytime she made a noise of acknowledgement. And then finally, she said “Yes, yes, not a problem at all. We’ll be right there,” and hung up. “Stiles, your dad has asked me to take you up to the Hale property.”

“What?!” Scott and Stiles said at the same time. 

“He didn’t explain much, but he needs you there,” she said. “Scott,” she continued cutting Scott off just as he opened his mouth, “you’re going to school. I’ll pick you up later.”

Stiles shook his head at Scott, shrugged, and then got back in Melissa’s car. “Sorry,” he mouthed and Scott just shrugged back, waved, and then headed into the school. 

Melissa tried to make smalltalk with Stiles on the way to the Hale property, but all Stiles could think about was the day he got called out of class, and Melissa had been there to take him to the hospital… 

Melissa had to park well back from the police tape, but John saw them right away and waved them both over. Melissa, being taller than 13-year-old Stiles, saw it first and she stopped dead in her tracks. 

“Holy shit,” she said, hand covering her mouth. 

The crowd parted somewhat and Stiles saw it, too. The entirety of the Hale House was burned, walls were blackened and blistered, the ground was ash. There was nothing left… except for the living room, at the center of the house, which was perfectly intact, as if the fire hadn’t been anywhere near it. 

“Was anyone––” Melissa started to ask.

“No, they’re all safe. Rattled, but alive,” his dad said. “They were all in there.”

Stiles could hear his dad and Melissa continue talking, but he was drawn forward, feet carrying him towards the pristine room in the middle of the wreckage. It was as if something was drawing him into the house. 

Stiles stopped short, the toes of his shoes just touching the edges of the ash where a large front porch once stood. He could see it now: orange and blue and green, with a corduroy patch and red buttons. The monstie he had secretly given Cora all those years ago, resting half under the couch. 

“Oh,” Stiles breathed. 

“Yeah,” said John, his hand coming to rest on Stiles’ shoulder. 

_Oh._


	2. Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You’ll notice the canon divergent tag now. Some things from the show happened but maybe they were a little different or happened at a different time. I do what I want.

Stiles collapsed down onto a couch in the basement of the newly built Hale House. In the three years since the fire, he had become somewhat of a fixture in their household. And yet…

“So, just so I’m clear on this piece,” Stiles said slowly, “despite the fact that I’m here probably more than I’m at my own house, you guys never felt the need to, you know--” he gestured wildly at the Hales. 

Cora and Derek at least had the decency to look abashed. Laura was fighting back laughter. Talia was throwing her hands up in frustration. And Peter was quiet, leaning against the doorframe, taking it all in. 

“I just want to make sure I understand,” Stiles continued. “Scott is a werewolf and someone tried to kill him tonight. I’m not crazy, right?”

“Well,” Cora started in her best impression of the Tenth Doctor, before Derek elbowed her in the ribs. “Ouch!”

“No, you know what,” Stiles pushed on, not waiting for a response from anyone. “It actually kinda makes sense. I mean, look at Derek. It’s obvious in hindsight.”

Laura and Cora lost it. 

“Ok, Stiles, it’s time we had a long overdue chat,” Talia intervened before Stiles could say anything else. She sat down next to him on the couch, pulling a throw pillow into her lap as she turned to face him. She took a deep breath, “Yes, we’re werewolves. I’m the Alpha of our Pack, and Beacon Hills is our Pack’s territory.”

Stiles nodded along as if any of this made sense. 

“Not that long ago, a rival Pack sent a near-dead, packless Alpha into Beacon Hills in an attempt to attack someone in our Pack, and well,” she smiled ruefully, “now Scott is a werewolf and a member of the Hale Pack. See, only Alpha’s bite can turn someone into a werewolf, but even a packless Alpha is powerful enough to take out a lot of Beta wolves, like Laura and Derek and Cora.”

Stiles looked around at his friends. “So what happened to the Alpha who bit Scott?” he asked before he could stop himself. 

There was a long pause. “He’s been taken care of,” Talia finally answered, eyes flicking quickly to Peter and then back to Stiles. 

“Ok,” Stiles said. “Ok, ok. So, you’re all werewolves, and actually now my two best friends are werewolves, and no one was ever gonna tell me?”

It hurt suddenly. The realization that the Hales--people he considered his second family--and Scott kept him in the dark like this. 

“Stiles,” Talia said softly. “Of course we were going to tell you. In fact, we nearly told you right after the fire.” Stiles opened his mouth but Talia held her hand up and he paused. “Being a werewolf isn’t easy; the world isn’t ready, will probably never be ready to know that creatures like us exist. We have to constantly be on our guard, and everyone who knows about us instantly becomes just as much of a target as we are. Stiles, we didn’t keep you in the dark to hurt you, we kept you in the dark to protect you, and your dad." 

“You should have told me when Scott was turned,” Stiles said, defiant though he really did understand what Talia was saying.

“Maybe,” She agreed. “Maybe we should have done a lot of things differently.” She sighed. “Just look at what happened tonight: Hunters--werewolf hunters--targeted my children and Scott--my  _ pack _ \-- in that club. And they were almost successful.” 

“But you were there,” Peter’s voice cut into the silence left by Talia’s last comment. He hadn’t moved from the doorway, but his gaze was fixed on Stiles from across the room.

“So?” 

“Stiles, maybe you never gave it much thought, but you’re the reason we were all saved from that fire. Hunters tried to kill us all that night. They trapped us in our home and tried to burn us alive. But we all survived.”

“Because of this,” Cora said, stepping forward and handing Stiles the monstie he had given her all those years ago. 

“I don’t understand,” he said. 

“And tonight, Deaton told us what you did with the mountain ash.”

“Deaton? The vet? Scott’s boss?” 

“Our Emissary. He helps us stay connected with the supernatural world,” Talia clarified. “He said when he arrived, you had created a barrier of mountain ash that kept the hunters out, which is odd since usually normal humans aren’t affected by mountain ash.”

“I just--” Stiles held his hands out as if to explain that he hadn’t known what he was doing, but he felt the need to try to do something, anything to help his friends. 

“Stiles, we almost told you about us after the fire because we were saved by the creature that you gave Cora.” 

“My mom made those,” Stiles said slowly, his mind racing. “She made…”

“And then we thought maybe it was just your mother who had the gift, but now…” Talia trailed off. 

His mom had made so, so many monsties. Where were they? He remembered giving some away to his friends, to people he thought might be lonely. What happened to them? How long had it been? 5 or 6 years?

“I. I have to go,” Stiles said, pulling himself onto shaky legs. 

“Stiles!” Cora called after him, but Stiles was already pushing his way past Peter, up the stairs and out into the driveway to his Jeep.

The box was still in the back of his closet, dented and a bit dusty. Stiles stared at the box, feeling the passage of 6 years, seeing the ten-year-old boy struggling to tape the box closed, unwilling to ask his dad for help with something so stupid. Slowly, he peeled back the tape and pulled open the flaps of cardboard; dozens of monsties gazed unblinkingly back at him with mismatched button eyes. 

Stiles dropped the box, kicked it back in the closet and slammed the door closed. 

It was sometime before dawn, hours after he had gone to bed and hadn’t slept, after he had pointedly not answered any of the calls or texts from anyone other than his dad; it was before dawn when Stiles finally opened the closet again and pulled out the box. 

He blindly grabbed one, hand closing on a pink and green and yellow creature with purple eyes. And then from its place of honor, high up on the top shelf in his room, Stiled pulled down his mom’s green sewing box. 

Claudia had never gotten around to teaching Stiles to sew. He often wondered if she would have, if she hadn’t gotten sick. Or maybe Stiles would never have been interested. He’ll never know. But this green, plastic box was the most tangible thing of hers he could think to keep. 

He pulled out a long plastic tool with a metal point at the end. His mom used to use this to pull out old stitches before she would hem clothes. Stiles thought he remembered how she used it.

He set the pink and green and yellow monsie on his desk and bit his lip, looking down at it thoughtfully. And then he didn’t hesitate. He slowly pulled out the seam, stitch by stitch. He suddenly felt more than the monstie unravel in his fingers. He heard things, music, his mother’s singing. 

He shoved the half unmade pink and green and yellow monstie back into the box and shoved the box back into his closet and retched. 

The box stayed there for a long time. 

Much later, when he finally returned to the box of monsties, he was prepared. As he slowly took them apart he heard it all: spells in English and Polish. He knew that's what they were now—spells she had worked into each stitch. He felt the magic seep out as he undid one after another, as he frantically wrote down everything he heard from the ghost of his mom’s voice. 

He’d fix them in time, every last monstie. But for now, he reverse engineered them, learning their secrets and wondering just how much his mother knew. 


	3. Snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so I know according to the Teen Wolf wiki Stiles' birthday is supposed to be in April. I don't care. I moved it, because I need to for plot reasons.

Stiles didn’t think he would ever be truly used to the cold. Sure, Beacon Hills had gotten cold in the winter, and he grew up just an hour away from the snow, but apparently November in northern Canada meant something very different than it did in northern California. 

But it was all worth it, he reminded himself. Every frozen day he spent there was worth it. 

Even if he could hardly keep his warm most nights. Even if those cold lonely nights caused him to crave the feeling of a warm body pressed against his own. Even if he had started thinking more and more about who he really wanted to be pressed against him, his thoughts traveling back towards home. 

But none of that mattered, he also reminded himself. He was fairly certain Beacon Hills would be there when he returned––though given past events he supposed it could go either way––and right now he needed to focus. 

But focusing was hard for Stiles, even at the best of times. And especially on a day like today.

He sighed, pulled on his boots and parka, and pushed open the door to the cabin, bracing himself against the cold. His first steps outside were always breathtaking, and not just because it was so cold it often felt like he was getting the wind knocked out of him. The small cabin was situated next to a frozen lake, in a clearing surrounded by tall, full pines and shadowy mountains. The clearing wasn’t on any maps, and Stiles’ cabin was one of only a few dozen dotting the shores of the lake. 

Valley of the Hidden Moon, they called it. And Stiles had witnessed first hand, how the lake was so clear and still that on cloudless nights, the moon’s reflection was so perfect, it looked like it could be  _ in _ the lake. 

“Like Mirrormere,” Stiles had whispered to himself the first time he had seen it, and then was equally parts relieved and sad that no one was around to get that reference. 

But in the nearly nine months since Stiles has been there, the majesty and beauty of it all had not even come close to wearing off.

Stiles trudged through the new snowfall and up the porch of the neighboring cabin. He knocked but didn’t wait for a reply before pushing open the door and letting himself in, stamping snow off his boots as he entered. 

“Tess!” he called, pushing his way through the assortment of plants and hanging decorations and other obstacles that stood between the main part of the cabin and the front door. “Look, I know I’m supposed to be focusing on actually shaping the runes right now, but I think I’ve finally got the hang of that song I found a while back and I think that if I––”

Tess stood in her living room, pouring a pot of tea into an oddly shaped, hand-made teacup. Nothing about this was unusual. All of Tess’s teacups were hand-made, odd shapes and colors, some with handles, some without. And Tess always had a pot of tea ready when Stiles came over to review his work. 

No, the odd thing, the thing that brought Stiles up short was that there were three people sitting on Tess’s plaid sofa: Cora, Derek, and Peter Hale. 

Stiles opened his mouth and then closed it. He blinked, looked at Tess, then back at the Hales. 

“OK, if you’ve learned how to turn dust bunnies into people, you’ve been keeping things from me,” Stiles said, pointing a finger at Tess, somehow afraid that if he fully acknowledged the visitors, they would vanish. 

Tess laughed. “I did manage to sneak them here without you realizing, so I think I still have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Tess said with a wink, flipping her long greying hair over her shoulder. 

“You’re such an idiot,” Cora said, and then launched herself at Stiles, enveloping him in the first real hug he’d had in nearly a year. “It’s so good to see you!”

“What are you guys doing here?” Stiles asked after he had gotten hugs from Derek and Peter, too. 

“You didn’t think we’d let you spend your twenty-first birthday alone, did you?” Peter asked.

Stiles turned to Derek and Cora. 

“We thought you’d want some familiar faces to celebrate with,” Cora said. “No offence, Tess. You seem lovely, but you know, we go way back.”

“None taken,” she said with a shrug. “MIlestone birthdays are things that should be celebrated. Besides, they can often lead to a new awakening within you, so you’ll have to keep your senses open, Stiles.”

“Right,” Stiles agreed, automatically. 

“Also, someone needed to make sure you didn’t get drunk and wander off into the wilderness,” Derek added. “Again.”

“That was one time!” Stiles protested. 

“That was not one time,” Peter corrected. “That was at least five times, and you’re lucky we know the Preserve so well.” 

Stiles rolled his eyes, and tried to be annoyed, but he was mostly just overjoyed by the familiar banter. 

“OK, now that that’s settled, Stiles has work to do,” Tess said before the conversation could continue. “Head on back to your cabin, and once Stiles is done here, I’ll be out of your way for the whole weekend.”

“Aw, Tess, you would skip my birthday stump burning?” Stiles asked, turning his attention back to her. 

“We’ll see,” she said with another wink, and Stiles knew she wouldn’t dare actually miss something so important. “Shoo,” she waved her hand at the Hales before turning back to Stiles, “Now, tell me about this song.”

Stiles spent the day working with Tess, dissecting the song line by line, translating from Polish to English and then back again; diagramming sentences, and replacing words. And singing and singing and singing. And strangely, though he knew his friends were close, and he was desperate to see them, knowing that they were so close gave him more focus than he’d had in months. And by the end of the day, he felt like there had been real progress. 

“I think you’re on to something big,” Tess said as she packed away her watercolor paints. “It’s so different from how I channel the universe in the brushes. I don’t know how you can contain so very much inside something so small.”

And that’s what Stiles loved about Tess as a mentor. “It just makes sense to me,” Stiles said with a shrug. 

“Of course it does. That’s why it works,” she said simply. “Now listen. I know you’ve been missing your friends, so go have the time of your life tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow for the burning, don’t worry,” she assured him. 

“Thanks, Tess,” he said, hugging her before he grabbed his parka. 

“Wait just a sec,” she said, succrying off into the kitchen. “I have a little something for you.” 

She handed him a bright blue bottle with golden script across the front. “It’s our own Valley of the Hidden Moon honey mead. You won’t find anything like it anywhere else. Happy birthday.”

“You shouldn’t have, Tess.”

She tisked and pushed him towards the door. “And Stiles? Please don’t get drunk and wander into the woods. It would be terribly inconvenient for everyone around.”

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you? Bye Tess!” Stiles called, ignoring her. 

“So what’s this burning thing you mentioned earlier?” Cora asked later, as they sat around the fire back in Stiles’ cabin. 

The Hales had come fully loaded with enough food and drink for an army, and Derek had disappeared into the kitchen a while back, apparently making everyone dinner (“It’s his new thing,” Cora had whispered, despite the fact that she knew perfectly well that Derek could hear her. “He’s been taking classes with his new girlfriend, Kira.”) and whatever he had planned smelled amazing. 

They had opened the bottle of special honey mead just to taste it, since The Hales had brought their own wolfsbane laced liquor, but it turned out that whatever was done to the honey mead was enough to get even werewolves drunk. 

Stiles had a flush high on his cheeks, both from the mead and the heat of the fire, but also from being in the company of his friends again. “Stump burnings are a tradition around here. When there is a major event like a big birthday,” he gestured at himself, “or a wedding or whatever, you go into the woods and find a tree that’s beyond saving. And then you help take it down, and you bring the wood around to whoever may need it. And then you dig out the stump.”

“What like with a shovel?” Peter asked, incredulously. “In this weather?”

“What? No. Obviously not,” Stiles scoffed. “I got my stump in summer. Anyway, it’s a cool tradition, but so few people live here, that I’ve only seen one since I’ve been here.” 

“Well, I’m glad we’ll get to see it,” Cora said, smiling up at Stiles from her spot on the floor, and raising her glass to him. 

“So am I,” he agreed, raising his glass as well. 

Derek’s dinner turned out to be an amazing roast chicken and potatoes, and he had also somehow made chocolate cupcakes for Stiles, too. All of which was all a surprise to Stiles, since he wasn’t one hundred percent certain his oven worked correctly.

And strangely, the mead didn’t run out during dinner. Nor during dessert. And in fact, Stiles was only beginning to realize that  _ maybe _ Tess had given him an enchanted bottle of mead for his birthday––one that wouldn’t run out and that would affect werewolves––when he suddenly decided it would be a good idea to see if he could see the moon in the lake. 

“See this!” Peter called, jumping over a half asleep Cora, and an oblivious Derek texting Kira, as he chased after Stiles with his parka. “This is why no one trusts you to get drunk near any sort of nature!”

“I’m not drunk,” Stiles protested. Peter quirked an eyebrow at him. “I’m just not-sober. There’s a difference.” 

“That’s interesting,” Peter replied. “And does not-sober-Stiles realize that he’s only wearing socks and is about to walk into the snow?”

“Maybe this was a test to see how sober Peter is?” Stiles suggested, but stopped to pull his outdoor clothes on. 

“More so than you,” Peter said, pulling on his own boots and gloves. “And now, pretty damn sober!” he said, through chattering teeth as Stiles pulled open the door and they were greeted with a gust of wind. 

“Here.” Stiles handed Peter a small paper flower. “Put it in your pocket. It’ll help.”

Peter went to protest, but the second the flower was in his pocket, his whole jacket started to warm. “Did you––” he started to ask, but Stiles pulled him along, down into the snow. 

The sky was perfectly clear, and the moon close enough to full that they could easily see, even without the lights from the cabin spilling across the snow. 

“This is my favorite part,” Stiles said, coming to a stop on the shore of the lake. “It’s like––”

“Mirrormere,” Peter breathed. 

Stiles stared at him for a long moment. “What’s what I said,” Stiles whispered, his breath curling out into the cold air. 

Peter smiled. “It’s amazing,” he said, and Stiles really didn’t know if he was talking about the lake or the view or maybe, just maybe, Stiles himself. 

So, Stiles just said, “Yeah, it is,” and then took a deep breath that nearly froze his lungs, and slipped his gloved hand into Peter’s and squeezed. 

And Peter squeezed back. 


	4. The Shop

It didn’t look like much on the outside. In fact, most people who drove by the cluster of shops thought they were all permanently closed. But that was fine. Most people didn’t need to stop.

Inside though. Inside was where the magic happened.

The sign above the door read “Moonstone Gifts & Things” in a peeling silver script, and with the exception of four or so random hours each day, the “sorry we’re closed” sign hung directly under it. Very few people actually visited the shop, and that’s how the proprietors liked it.

And then Stiles showed up.

Stiles blundered into Moonstone Gifts & Things on an inconspicuous Thursday afternoon in March. A man was sitting in an armchair, his booted feet kicked up on the counter, a thick book in his hand. And somewhere deeper in the shop, came the sound of a beaded curtain before another man appeared. They both appeared to be in their mid-to-late 40s, though Stiles never felt he was all that good at guessing people’s ages.

“Can we help you?” the man in the chair asked in such a way that made it sound like he was unsure if that was the question he was supposed to ask when someone entered the shop.

“Are you Oisin?” Stiles asked.

“I am,” the man that had come out of the back said, taking off a pair of glasses and cleaning them on his shirt. “You haven’t been here before,” he stated.

“No,” Stiles agreed, looking around. “It’s an interesting place you’ve got here,” he said, raising a hand to grab a figurine off a nearby shelf.

“Touch nothing,” the man in the chair said, without looking up, having returned to this book.

Stiles pulled his hand back. “Is, um, now not a good time?” Stiles asked.

“We still don’t know why you’re here,” Oisin said. “I can hardly advise you on if now is the right time or not with so little to go on.”

“Oh, shit, sorry,” Stiles said. “I’m Stiles.”

“A pleasure, Stiles,” Oisin said. “And this is Roderick,” he gestured to the man on the chair.

“I think you might offer a service I’ve been searching for,” Stiles said, placing his bag on the counter slowly, afraid Roderick might scold him again.

“And what might that be? Are you looking for a gift? Perhaps something for a family member?” Oisin suggested.

“Not quite,” Stiles said, gauging the men in front of him. It felt like they were all playing some intricate game, but Stiles had no idea what the next move was supposed to be, so he just pushed forward. “I’m looking to acquire something for myself.”

Stiles opened his bag, and slowly put three objects on the counter: a paper flower, a paper star, and, a reconstructed monstie. The two men looked at the objects then back at Stiles.

“I am looking for a tracing,” Stiles said, cutting straight to the point. “Is that a service you can provide? I’ve heard that you’re the best.”

Oisin leaned over the counter, eyeing each object, but not touching. “They’re all yours?” he asked after a few long moments.

“The star and flower are completely mine. That little guy,” he said, pointing at the monstie, “was made by my mom nearly 20 years ago, but I’ve added to it.”

“You mainly work in paper?” Roderick asked now, also leaning over the counter.

“It was the thing I always came back to,” Stiles said.

“And what is inside?” Oisin asked.

“Songs,” Stiles said simply.

Oisin and Roderick seemed to have a silent conversation before they looked back to Stiles.

“Do you have an anchor?” Oisin asked.

And wow--if that wasn’t the million dollar question. Did Stiles have an anchor?

If he closed his eyes, Stiles could still feel the snowflakes melting on his cheeks, taste the cold air coming off the perfectly clear lake. He could feel Peter’s hands in his, smell his skin, hair, mouth, as their lips met in the freezing air for the first time. He could feel the warmth of an arm around his shoulders while sitting in front of the burning, and he could feel the warm body next to his own, legs tangled in blankets.

But he could also see taillights and hear voicemail messages. He could feel envelopes and taste promises, and see more and time and space and distance.

Stiles hadn’t actually seen Peter in person in nearly four years. But his stomach turned at the thought of anyone else anchoring him.

“Yes,” Stiles said, unsure if he was lying or not.

Oisin just nodded, then looked back at the counter. “How long of a tracing?” he asked.

“A full song.” Stiles answered.

Oisin nodded again and said “You’re going to need more paper. And come back in three days. I’ll be ready.”

Stiles grabbed his things from the counter and left before Oisin could change his mind.

Stiles stopped the car at the bottom of the long drive up to the Hale house. He knew if he went any further, they would hear the rumble of the engine and know it was him right away. And he wasn’t quite ready for that.

Instead, Stiles parked on the side of the road, pulled out a paper crane, and went the rest of the way on food. Oh, they would still hear him, but it would take much longer, and he could get much closer, especially with the crane.

Stiles knocked on the door--something he had only done a handful of times in his whole life, but it had been so long, he almost felt like a stranger.

It was Peter who opened the door. Peter, freshly showered, and looking so stunningly beautiful as he edged into his thirties. Peter, who Stiles had dreamed about every night, and longed to hold and touch again.

Peter who recovered first. “Stiles, what are you doing here?” he asked, shock evident in his voice. “Come in, come in. Why didn’t you tell anyone you were coming home?”

Stiles let himself be ushered into the house and directed to the same couch he had sat on a million times before.

Instead of answering, Stiles just said, “Hi, Peter.”

And Peter dropped to his knees in front of Stiles and buried his face in Stiles neck, breathing in and scent marking him at the same time.

“Oh, fuck, Stiles, I’ve missed you,” Peter said, pulling Stiles into a hug. Stiles was now taller than Peter, but in this position, he still managed to feel enveloped by the broader man.

“I didn’t know if I was coming home,” Stiles said into Peter’s shoulder. “I was afraid if I said I was coming back, I would have, even if I needed to go somewhere else,” Stiles admitted. “But it turns out that what I need is right outside of Beacon Hills.” And here, right here, Stiles thought, but didn’t say.

“Does anyone else know you’re here?” Peter asked.

“Not yet,” Stiles said, and then they were kissing, kissing with all the desperation of waiting four years. Kissing as if they were relieved to have this, and worried that it would be gone again.

Peter pulled Stiles off the couch, led him up the stairs to his room, and slammed the door behind them.

Later, after Peter had kissed his way down Stiles’ body and arched over him as they had come together; later, after Peter had held Stiles down, and fingered him until he had come a second time, gasping and oversensitive; later, when they were tangled in sheets, and Stiles' memories of Peter in his bed were crashing into the present of being in Peter’s bed, Peter asked, “What did you find near Beacon Hills?”

Stiles sighed and rolled on his side to look at Peter.

“You know how that thing my mom made saved you and your family?” Stiles asked.

“The monstie?” Peter teased. “Yes, I’m intimately aware of what happened.”

“Shut up,” Stiles said, swatting half heartedly at Peter. “Well, I gave a few of them away to other people, too.”

Stiles paused and Peter gestured at him to continue.

“After the bruning on my twentyfirst, I was a little distracted,” he admitted, lightly kicking Peter’s leg with his foot, “but then, something Tess had said about awakenings came back to me, and I realized that I didn’t know what had happened to those other monsties. So we found out. And, you’re not the only one who my mom saved. Everyone who got a monstie was saved in some way or another.” Stiles was getting excited now. “And we were able to trace all that magic back from my friends and to my mom.”

“That’s amazing,” Peter said.

“So there’s this ritual where a Spark--that’s me by the way, that’s what they call what I can do, what my mom could do--so, this ritual traces the history of your magic on your body. It’s like a tattoo, but one that isn’t visible, unless I was using my spark.”

“That sounds incredible.”

“And in order to do the ritual, I’ll need an Anchor,” Stiles said.

A pause hung heavy in the air.

“You should ask Talia,” Peter said. “She’s the Alpha, the most powerful.”

“No,” Stiles said softly.

“Or Scott or Cora. They’re your best friends.”

Stiles shrugged. “It wouldn’t feel right. Too intimate. They both have partners.”

“I’m The Left Hand,” Peter protested, confirming something that Stiles had always suspected but never known. “I’ve done too much.”

“No, you’ve done what was needed,” Stiles corrected. “Please, Peter. There’s no one else who I want.”

Peter sighed, but was smiling. “For you? Anything.”

And that’s how three days later, Stiles lay in a circle surrounded by paper stars and hearts and flowers and birds, and a dozen other shapes, with Peter’s claws deep in his shoulders, as Oisin painted the words to his mother’s lullaby, the one from the first monstie, across his skin in golden paint. 


	5. The Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My plan was to update this once a day for the 6 days, but yesterday was my birthday and so I took a break. However, since there are only 6 picture prompts and 7 days in Steter Week, I'll still finish in time tomorrow (hopefully).

Stiles stood with the Hale Pack. He could hear the sounds of others arriving, footsteps dulled by the damp leaves and pine needles on the forest floor. The tree coverage was so thick that even though it had been raining for days, only a light mist pearled their clothes and hair and skin.

The normal town folks had paid their respects two days ago, coming by the Hale house with flowers and cassrolls and kind memories. But as the sun had gone down, the first packs had begun to arrive. The nearby ones arrived first: The Morris Pack from Sant Cruz, the Bryce Pack from Humboldt, and the Quentin Pack from Tahoe. Then came the Panno Pack from Big Sur and the Miller Pack from Morro Bay and the Lee Pack from Ashland. And then through the night and into the following day, Packs from Vancouver to the north, Las Vegas and Phoenix to the east, and Ensenada to the south arrived.

Pack gatherings of this magnitude were rare, and to have the major packs of the West all in one place meant one of three things: A werewolf tribunal (generally to deal with a territory dispute), an interpack marriage, or the death of a highly regarded Alpha.

As the packs gathered in the natural tree canopy in the center of the Beacon Hills preserve, Stiles was silent and still. He had sobbed himself to sleep the night he heard the news; lost and broken, devastated, and furious at himself for not doing enough. But now he stood silently at Peter’s side, ashamed and feeling unworthy of the grief he held. Talia wasn’t his mom or his Alpha--not really--and though he had loved her like family, he suddenly felt like an intruder; he wasn’t a werewolf, he wasn’t even their Emissary.

A familiar warm sensation traveled into his hand, and Stiles turned to Peter, eyes wide.

“Don’t worry about me,” Stiles tried to convey with his eyes, knowing that any conversation, no matter how quiet, would be broadcast in this crowd.

Peter gave Stiles a look that clearly indicated that Stiles was not doing a great job of holding himself together, and that draining Stiles’ pain was the only way Peter could calm him. And wow, that just made Stiles feel even worse. Talia was Peter’s older sister, and though they had a nearly fifteen year age gap, and though they often fought, they still loved each other. And here Peter was comforting Stiles when it should be the other way around.

Stiles squeezed Peter’s hand once, and let go. “Thanks anyway,” he mouthed, and Peter gave him a sad smile.

On the other side of Peter, Laura was staring stoically into the clearing, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her umbrella with werewolf strength. And on Stiles’ side Cora was tucked into Boyd’s arm, Derek appeared to have a death grip on Kira’s hand, and Stiles’ couldn’t see their hands, but Scott, Isaac, and Erica were so close, he was pretty sure they were all holding hands. He still couldn’t believe that after all these years, after so much time had passed, Isaac, Erica, and Boyd had all found their way into the Hale Pack, that once his tracing was completed, the residue of his mom’s spells worked into the monsties guided them all back to him.

And Talia had welcomed each of them with open arms. And in the end, they had less than a year together.

As the final packs joined the semi-circle around the mound, Deaton stepped forward to begin the ceremony. Deaton spoke up the phases of the moon, and lined her mound with traditional flowers and herbs and spells. Stiles had stayed up all night, making sure the folded moon he gave to Deaton had just the right words so that Talia would rest peacefully.

And then slowly, one by one, first the Hales and then the rest of the Packs, added a stone to Alpha Hale’s burial mound, and the ceremony was almost complete. Laura was the last one to place a stone. She then turned to the gathering of werewolves, flashed her now-red eyes, and roared into the sky. The other pack alphas joined her, then the betas, and soon the gathering thunder was lost in a sea of roars.

Peter found Stiles sitting alone, along a low rock wall on the far side of the yard of the Hale house, his umbrella resting, open in a tree, keeping him dry in the heavy rain.

“Want some company?” he asked, dropping down onto the wall without waiting for an answer, and sticking his umbrella next to Stiles’ forming a larger dry area.

“Shouldn’t you be in there, making sure everyone stays on their best behavior? Aren’t you Laura’s Left Hand now?”

Peter huffed out a laugh. “Laura does not need my help making sure everyone stays inline. She’s inherited all that from her mother,” Peter said, a mixture of pride and sadness.

“But you are her Left Hand, aren’t you?” Stiles pressed.

“Unless she decides to replace me, which is well within her right as the Alpha.”

“She won’t,” Stiles said quickly, but he honestly didn’t know Laura as well as he knew the rest of the Hales. Growing up she had always seemed distant, and never really played with Cora and Derek. And even after Peter and Stiles started officially courting the year before, and Stiles was suddenly around Laura when they were both adults, they just never connected.

“Don’t worry about it, Stiles,” Peter assured him. “It will all work out.”

“I can’t believe you!” Stiles said, his voice suddenly raising. “You have been comforting me all day. I should be comforting you. She was your Alpha. Your sister.”

“Oh, Stiles,” Peter said, pulling Stiles into an awkward seated hug. “You are comforting me. And I have been prepared for something like this happening for ever, really. You have to always assume someone is out to get the Alpha.”

“That can’t make things easier. Just because you knew she might be attacked,” Stiles pointed out. “There’s worrying and then there’s the actual thing happening.” Stiles could feel himself be pulled back into the brink of hysterical tears. “I could have done something. I didn’t even know I should be preparing for something like this. No wonder I’m not a pack member!” he ranted. “How could I be so careless?”

“Whoa, slow down Stiles,” Peter said in a soft voice. “First of all, you have done amazing things for our pack. You saved us all those years ago, remember? Talia lived over a decade longer than she would have if it weren’t for you,” Peter reminded him. “I know you think you could have folded her something that would have kept her safe, but don’t put that on yourself, ok?”

Stiles sniffled, trying to force the tears back. “Yeah,” he managed.

“And who said you weren’t pack?” Peter demanded.

“I mean,” Stiles said, hiccuping, “I’m not a werewolf, and I’m not an emissary, and I haven’t married into the pack like Kira, so…” he trailed off awkwardly.

Peter rolled his eyes, and the gesture was so familiar and normal, so unlike anything else that had happened over the past few days. “ You and your dad have been in the pack since the fire, you idiot.”

“What?”

“But if you want to be Emissary, Laura may want someone other than Deaton, if she’s changing things up,” Peter continued, ignoring Stiles.

“And if you wanted to marry your way into the pack, all you had to do was ask, sweetheart,” he finished with a smirk.

“Oh, fuck you,” Stiles laughed, punching Peter in the arm.

“I am sorry that you didn’t feel like you were part of the pack,” Peter said softer.

“I guess I thought it would be more formal. Like when the wonder triplets were bit,” Stiles admitted.

Peter shrugged. “Tal was never one for standing on ceremony. She treated you like pack, so the rest of us did, too. And that was that.”

Stiles reached out and grabbed Peter’s hand. They sat in silence for a while until Stiles looked over and caught the look on Peter’s face.

“So what are you really doing out here?” Stiles asked carefully. “Why aren’t you really in there listening to all the pack politics disguised as condolences?”

Stiles saw the side of Peter’s mouth curl into a smirk. “You do know me so well,” he said. “I don’t want to wait to see what the council decides to do about Talia’s murder.”

“You’re going after Deucalion,” Stiles whispered.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Peter’s smirk widened as he stood up, grabbed his umbrella from the tree and held out his hand to Stiles.

“Come with me?”

And Stiles took his hand.


	6. The Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I failed at getting this completed in Steter Week, but I did finish it (and only 1 day late)! Thanks for those of you who have been reading along and commenting, it means a lot. I hope you all enjoy the ending.

They hadn’t left Beacon Hills in the dead of night, or vanished without a trace. But there had been so much chaos surrounding Talia’s death, and having all of the allied packs in town, that at first no one really noticed that Peter and Stiles were missing. Truth be told, everyone was getting used to them showing up later for things, slightly disheveled and reeking of each other, but they were so unapologetic about it, no one bothered to complain. 

As the day following Talia’s ceremony ended, and Peter and Stiles had still not shown up, people began to worry. By the time anyone thought to just to call one of them, Peter and Stiles had already made it to Utah. 

Peter was checking them in at some chain motel, and as Stiles reassured Cora, then Scott, then his dad, then Scott again that everything was fine, and that they shouldn’t worry about him and Peter. 

“Do you think they suspect why we left,” Peter asked as he unlocked their room, sniffed the stale air in disgust, and turned on the old AC unit to help circulate the air. 

Stiles sighed. “I think they think we’re eloping.”

Peter laughed. “We could do that too, sweetheart,” he purred. “If we pass through Vegas, we can have Elvis officiate, and we don’t even have to get out of the Jeep.”

“I hate you all,” Stiles said, and vanished into the bathroom. 

Stiles didn’t know it yet, but they would eventually pass through Vegas. And Denver and Phoenix and a dozen others, but Deucalion’s trail was beyond cold. It was as if there was no trail at all. 

Stiles tried to stay busy when he wasn’t driving. He pulled his origami paper out, and started folding, singing along as he made his usual--stars and flowers and moons--but then moved on to animals and trees and more abstract shapes, until the backseat was covered in his brightly colored shapes. And then came out the travel sewing kit.

“What are you doing?” Peter asked when he caught sight of Stiles stitching around the fold of the first star. 

“I’ve been experimenting with adding her method to my own,” Stiles said without looking up. “If I can make it work, it would help keep my spell intact longer--I can’t believe that of all things my magic wants to use paper!”

“But you’re so good with your fingers,” Peter said, a smirk curling his lips, though he didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I mean, you fold so nicely,” he clarified. 

“Oh, I know just what you meant.”

“Tell me more,” Peter requested. 

“Uh, sure. OK, so my spell goes into the paper as I fold, and that works great most of the time. You can carry a small star on you, no problem. But paper is delicate,” he said, holding up a bright blue star, “especially origami paper. So if I want to make something bigger, something that could better save a person, or a home, or a pack…”

“Oh, Stiles––” 

“If I wanted to make sure that my boyfriend had all the help he could get when fighting the Alpha that killed his Alpha,” Stiles continued, “then I thought I might try to double-bind the spell, and add the stitching around the folds, and maybe even be able to string together a more complex pattern.”

Peter stared straight ahead for a long moment before he nodded and finally spoke. “And so far, has the experiments worked?”

Stiles grinned, wide and as mischievous as his name promised, “Well, no one has been able to find us, right?”

Peter laughed and slid his hand onto Stiles’ leg, squeezing reassuringly. 

Some nights they hardly spoke to each other, both lying awake as far away from each other as they can be on the same bed, unwilling to break the silence with their own worries. Some nights they fucked, desperate and fast, as if they had driven all this way to have an affair in a roadside motel. And some nights they curled around each other, whispering dreams and fears and plans into the darkness. 

“I’m so tired,” Stiles said on one of those types of nights. “I’m ready to be done with all of this.”

“You and me both,” Peter said, a frustrated growl low in his throat. 

“I want to open up a shop like Oisin and Roderick and have people like Tess over for tea and be there when Kira has that baby we’re all been pretending we don’t know about,” Stiles rambled. “I wouldn’t want to change anything about my life, not really, but I’m ready to have things be a little more…”

“More?” Peter prompted when Stiles didn’t answer right away. 

He waved his hands in the air as he tried to think of the right word, “mundane, I guess? I think I’ve had enough of everything else.”

Peter propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at Stiles. “You are a Spark who is in love with a werewolf, I think the mundane ship has sailed, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“But that all does sound nice,” Peter said quietly, as he lay down and pulled Stiles back into his arms. 

They eventually caught up to Deucalion in Las Cruces. And in the end, it wasn’t all that exciting; Peter, wrapped in Sties’ paper stars and flowers and moons, had walked right up behind Deucalion unnoticed. 

He leaned over and whispered, “You fucked with the wrong pack,” and then tore out Deucalion’s throat. 

Stiles watched as Peter’s body reacted to the Alpha spark: his head was thrown back in a silent roar, his arms corded with muscles, flexing and fists clenching, as he beta-shifted for a moment. And that’s when Stiles felt it, too. A tendril of something hooked behind his chest and pulled him, and Stiles felt like he had just gone into a free fall. 

Peter was suddenly at his side, large warm hands, pressing into his shoulders, over the bright white claw marks that appeared when Stiles did his foldings. Stiles looked into Peter’s face, and bright red eyes stared back at him. 

“Take off your shirt,” Peter said through fangs. 

Confused, Stiles nodded and scrambled to pull his shirts off. As soon as his chest was exposed, he understood. His tracing was glowing bright white down his whole body, his claw marks, exceptionally so. 

“Do you feel it?” Peter asked, fangs receding and shifting back to human. 

“Is that?” Stiles struggled for words. “Why does it feel different?”

“You told me at Talia’s ceremony that you didn’t feel like you were part of the Pack. Maybe that’s why the bond never fully formed. But this is a fully formed Pack bond, Stiles. And your magic is reacting so beautifully to me,” Peter said, a possessive growl low in his throat. Stiles leaned into his touch and when they kissed it felt electric and a whole new way. 

“We should take care of this,” Peter said, breaking the kiss. 

“Oh, you’re an Alpha now and suddenly you’re the voice of reason?” Stiles asked, laughing. 

“Darling, neither of us will ever be the voice of reason,” Peter corrected. “But there is somewhere we should go, and it’s a great place to ditch a werewolf corpse.”

“Romantic,” Stiles deadpanned. 

“Just you wait.”

They snuck into White Sands National Monument after it had closed for the evening and it was a little too easy to ditch Deucalion’s body covered in tiny paper wolfsbane flowers somewhere where earth and heat and time would take care of the rest. 

Stiles sat on the back of the Jeep and watched the last of a vibrant sunset splashed across the sky as Peter full-shifted into a wolf and ran into the night. He could feel exactly where Peter was, even when he was out of Stiles’ sight, and that centered Stiles like little else had in his whole life. 

Finally, Peter trotted up to Stiles, rubbing his full brown fur against Stiles’ leg before shifting back to a man. 

“Thank you,” Peter said, kissing Stiles deeply. 

Stiles opened his legs for Peter to step between them, and then he pulled them both down so they were laying down in the back of the Jeep. 

“I need to fuck you,” Peter breathed, bitting down Stiles’ throat. “My wolf wants to claim you.”

“Do it,” Stiles said, pulling Peter even closer. 

And so Peter did. 

Later, after Peter had practically torn Stiles’ clothes off and licked his way into him; later, after Peter had come, hips stuttering as he pressed deep into Stiles, his claws pressing gently but firmly over the anchor points they had made; later, after Stiles arched back and came as Peter bit down on the junction of his neck and shoulder; later, as they lay panting next to each other as the sun dropped behind the dunes, Stiles asked, “What are you going to do now?”

Peter smiled into the curve of Stiles’ neck. 

“I have some territory to negotiate with my niece,” he said. “I don’t think she’ll miss the north-eastern part of the Hale territory. And it will, after all, still be with a Hale.”

“Interesting,” Stiles said. 

Peter stretched and then laced his fingers with Stiles’. “You know,” he said conversationally. “As a new Alpha, I could really use an Emissary. Or would that be a little too exciting for you?”

Stiles snorted back a laugh as he pretended to think about it. “I think I can manage.”

Peter leaned over and kissed him. “Let’s go home,” he said against Stiles’ lips. 

“Home,” Stiles echoed. 

As they drove out of White Sands, Stiles finally turned his phone back on and was bombarded by missed texts. He was still shaking too much from the pack-bond to drive. 

“Ugh, I seriously can’t believe they all think we eloped and are just having a blow out of a honeymoon in Vegas! I mean, it’s like they don’t know me at all,” Stiles grumbled, thumbing through the texts.

“Well, they’ll find out the real reason we were gone soon enough,” Peter said, flashing his eyes at Stiles. 

“And won’t that be fun,” Stiles grumbled. 

“Stop it, you’re running my post-Alpha, post-orgasm glow.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles dismissed. “If only we could distract them from all that for a bit…” Stiles sat in silence for a moment. “You know, stopping in Vegas wouldn’t be that much of a detour…”

Peter just smirked, and gunned it, driving off into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi or rant about the dumb Teen Wolf timeline or send me a prompt on tumblr: meggie-stardust.tumblr.com


End file.
